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Friday, January 20, 2017

Chef Ouita Michel does the dinner for 1,000 at the Kentucky Society of Washington's Bluegrass Ball

Ouita Michel at the Holly Hill Inn (WKYT-TV image)

The town of Midway didn't go for Donald Trump, but it was nicely represented at the presidential inauguration this week. Midway's best-known chef, Ouita Michel, was in charge of the menu for about 1,000 Kentuckians, expatriates and friends who gathered for the quadrennial Bluegrass Ball of the Kentucky Society of Washington.

Michel took cues from Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, making the Wednesday night dinner entree the president's favorite dish, chicken fricassee, and one of the three desserts the first lady's almond white cake. Another dessert was chocolate bourbon pecan squares from her Midway Bakery.

The menu included several other Kentucky ingredients, including her Wallace Station bourbon mustard (for the Kentucky beef hemp dawgs?) and Weisenberger Mill flours. Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles said in a news release about the menu, “We’re deeply grateful to Ouita Michel, one of Kentucky Proud’s earliest and most dedicated champions, for incorporating so many Kentucky foods into her menu.”

"I want everybody who eats something from me to know that I am a Kentucky
chef. And I want to use Kentucky ingredients," Michel told Sam Dick of Lexington's WKYT-TV before the dinner.

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News in and around the small but surprisingly interesting town of Midway, Ky., reported, written and photographed by students in community journalism classes in the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Media, taught by Associate Extension Professor Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues,www.RuralJournalism.org.